Weekends and Finder

Long weekends are good. I got a lot done. COGENT is at a stage I can start implementing minds. I came up with an awesome new theory which I will probably spout later, when I've hammered it out.

I bought the last three trades of Finder. Chances are, you've read Finder. If you haven't, go to your comic store and buy it. It is probably my favorite ongoing comic. The lady who writes and draws it is named Carla Speed McNeil. While her style is far from flawless, it is very good and astonishingly human. When people use the pretentious term "speculative fiction", they really mean things like this.

Although saying "things like this" is pretty much gibberish, since, as far as I can tell, there aren't any "things like this". Just Finder.

I stopped reading it a bit over a year ago, when I had some severe problems trying to purchase it. You know how it goes. Now I've read the recent trades, and I'm still impressed by her work. Honestly, I was more impressed by the early books, especially Talisman. That was an awesome story. These recent ones are still good, they just don't have as much cohesion or emotional oomph.

Take Mystery Date. The story is actually very good, but it doesn't start until page 50. The first 50 pages are a myriad of short stories - REALLY short stories, not longer than a dozen pages. That's not really enough for me, especially since it's obvious she was playing around with anime art styles, and it didn't look right. From page 50 on it's a really great story - on par with Talisman.

Some people really like the book before that, "Dream Sequence". It has its appeal, and the art is spectacular - but I GREW UP with the premises she makes. It's old hat to me, and it was like watching an old werewolf movie: "yeah, yeah, he's transforming, get ON with it!" Still, well done.

The most recent trade, out last week, is called "the Rescuers". It seems weak to me. I'm going to re-read it, but I didn't feel any emotional punch. I'm a detective story fan, and it was a detective story. I can always smell a writer out of element. I think if I re-read it concentrating on it not being a mystery story, I'll have a better appreciation for it. It certainly highlights elements of the world rather nicely.

Even though it wasn't up to what I consider her best, "the Rescuers" is still worth the cover price - it's certainly better than most of the other stuff on the market.

Now that I've prattled on about Finder, let me just say, I am the king of Jotto. Wooo! It's a game where you guess your opponent's five-letter word, and they tell you how many letters are similar between the two. So if your word was "chunk", and they guessed "klutz", that's two similar letters.

I managed to guess the words "xenia" and "zoeae". I'm hotter than hot! Wooo! I am a superstar of the sport! Someone give me a medal and a seven-digit salary.